I think that there should be a special circle of hell reserved for people who scam seniors.

I read an article (and it may have been mentioned earlier in this thread, too) that said that the part of your brain that is skeptical of scams and stuff like that deteriorates as you get older. That scares me, to think that you could be perfectly aware that something's not legit then get taken in by the same thing later in life.

I think (or I hope) that knowledge is power. If you /know/ what you just wrote here, you can keep it in mind and try to outweigh it by being extra alert, you know? And maybe by continuing to read a lot about scams as you grow older.

I think that there should be a special circle of hell reserved for people who scam seniors.

I read an article (and it may have been mentioned earlier in this thread, too) that said that the part of your brain that is skeptical of scams and stuff like that deteriorates as you get older. That scares me, to think that you could be perfectly aware that something's not legit then get taken in by the same thing later in life.

I think (or I hope) that knowledge is power. If you /know/ what you just wrote here, you can keep it in mind and try to outweigh it by being extra alert, you know? And maybe by continuing to read a lot about scams as you grow older.

And when you get older, you can start to run financial decisions past younger, trusted members of your family first. Not "going to buy a new dress at Kohl's," but, "going to send some money to this charity that called me last night."

My grandmother called yesterday. She'd subscribed my two older daughters to a magazine (it has different age levels, so each gets her own). She said she had just wanted to let me know she'd received a renewal notice and she'd be renewing the magazines. I was puzzled at this, because I didn't *think* they'd been getting the magazine for a year already. Thanks to this thread, I knew that magazines try to get you to renew and renew and renew. So I accessed our account online and discovered that we're up for renewal in December, not now. So I was able to tell her that, and she can save her money for six months. I'm contemplating whether I should contact the magazine and tell them that I'm disappointed in them. They might contract out that sort of thing to another company. But, nonetheless, it definitely doesn't give me happy thoughts when thinking of them, and I *do* like the magazine a lot!

These renewal notices may have nothing to do with the publisher of the magazine at all.

Every issue of Harper's has a box warning subscribers against fake renewal notices.

Also, the mailing label on each magazine we receive has the date of the last issue printed on it somewhere.

Mr. Sirius got a fake renewal notice just last week for one of his political magazines. He told me that the magazine had a notice on the front page about the fake renewal notices.

Oh, Reader's Digest. Years ago, I decided to not renew as the quality is no longer as good and I can read it for free from the library. I figure, don't renew and they'll just stop sending magazines, right? Wrong. One day, they sent a harsh letter demanding that I owe money because they mailed two magazines after my subscription ran out. And now I need to mail a check for those two issues and while I was at it, I can easily and conveniently go ahead and renew for another year. They mailed several of those letters before I wrote back stating I never asked for those two issues and if they decided to mail them without my permission, that's their problem.

Yeah they did that to me also and actually got collections on me. Shot that one down pretty quickly.

Yesterday I got one of those "Wouldn't you like to give us money, and we promise it'll all go to helping disabled veterans!" callers. It gave me great pleasure to tell the guy that my husband is the quartermaster for our local VFW, and all of our donations go there. I encouraged him to remind the veterans that the VFW is there to help them. He was polite, but not thrilled by my response.

Got a similar call a few years back from someone claiming to represent our state police charity. I'm actually pretty sure it was legit, though, but while talking to the guy he mentioned my past support.

Me: what past support?Him: you contributed to our charity in 2005.Me: You know, I don't appreciate being lied to.Him: Excuse me?Me: In 2004 I was in Korea.Him: Oh. I, uh....Me: [click]

Yesterday I got one of those "Wouldn't you like to give us money, and we promise it'll all go to helping disabled veterans!" callers. It gave me great pleasure to tell the guy that my husband is the quartermaster for our local VFW, and all of our donations go there. I encouraged him to remind the veterans that the VFW is there to help them. He was polite, but not thrilled by my response.

Got a similar call a few years back from someone claiming to represent our state police charity. I'm actually pretty sure it was legit, though, but while talking to the guy he mentioned my past support.

Me: what past support?Him: you contributed to our charity in 2005.Me: You know, I don't appreciate being lied to.Him: Excuse me?Me: In 2004 I was in Korea.Him: Oh. I, uh....Me: [click]

Haven't heard back from them since.

It was not legitimate! If it was, a very small per centage of the donations go to the charity.

Before we had caller ID, I used to remind the caller that our local police warned us never to donate to charities that called us, particularly for all police and firefighters (true - a notice comes out every spring). If they were still on the line, I asked them what per cent of donations actually went to the police, and if they hemmed and hawed around, I asked if the caller was a volunteer or on a salary.

Many "charities" are cloaked with a name that sounds like the national ones we are all familiar with. For example, Make-a-Wish is pretty good, but the Kid's Wish Network uses less than 3% to send kids on trips.

I used to have a Favorite with a list of per cents turned for the claimed purpose, but can't find it. Maybe another member can find it.

Mr. Thipu has a rare blood type and will give a pint when called by the Red Cross but we will never give make any sort of monetary donation to a charity that calls us.

We've also found a way to get rid of many annoying calls. Most telephone solicitors will hang up after three or four rings. Anyone we would want to call us knows to let the phone ring at least five times before we will answer.